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James Laird-Smith
Data Scientist working in London
Current role
Data Scientist
The Financial Times (FT)
London, UK
Mar 2020 - (present)
The FT has over 600 journalists that work in 40 bureaux around the world. We have over one million paid subscribers. The team in which I work is called Customer Analytics; we are responsible for the collection, management and analysis of the FT’s internal data.
Education
University of Cape Town
Master of Commerce in Finance
Cape Town, South Africa
2015 - 2017
Thesis: Market Betas on the JSE:
Market Segmentation, Estimation & Empirical Evaluation
University of Cape Town
Bachelor of Business Science
Cape Town, South Africa
2009 - 2014
Specialisation: Finance
Completed higher-level courses in:
- Research and survey statistics
- Advanced micro and macroeconomics
- Econometrics
- Applied investments
- Alternative investments
- Financial research
Programming Skills
R
Level: advanced
N/A
2014 - (present)
- Base
- Tidyverse
- Modelling
- Visualisation
- OOP using S3
- Functional programming
- Package development
- Performance optimisation
SQL
Level: advanced
N/A
N/A
Git (and Github)
Level: intermediate
N/A
N/A
Employment History
Data Analyst
The Financial Times (FT)
London, UK
Nov 2018 - (present)
The FT has over 600 journalists that work in 40 bureaux around the world. We have over one million paid subscribers. The team in which I work is called Customer Analytics; we are responsible for the collection, management and analysis of the FT’s internal data.
My responsibilities have included:
- Product initiative assessment, scoring and evaluation.
- Modelling the FT’s subscriber retention.
- Evaluating business changes using financial models.
- Segmenting and targeting and customers using data.
Analyst
ICBC Standard Bank (ICBCS)
London, UK
May 2018 - Jul 2018
ICBCS is a financial markets and commodities bank based in London and with offices all around the world. The Client Referential Data (CRD) team is responsible for managing client static and reference data used across the bank.
My responsibilities included:
- Capture and maintenance of client data and settlement instructions.
- Managing subscriptions from market data sources.
- Performing reconciliations between internal systems.
Specialist
Maitland Group
Cape Town, South Africa
Mar 2015 - Nov 2017
Maitland Group is a global advisory and administration firm providing third-party fund administration to managers of pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity funds. Maitland has offices in 13 countries and has $280 billion in assets under administration.
My responsibilities included:
- Import and maintenance of client reference data.
- The rapid import of financial data from market sources (Bloomberg, Reuters etc).
- Building integration between systems and applications.
- Having extensive knowledge on a wide range of financial instruments.
- Provide analysis and output data for audit and compliance purposes.
- Providing bespoke reporting to clients.
- Using systems from FIS and Neoxam (both previously Sungard)
- Using systems from Broadridge Financial Solutions (formally called Paladyne Systems)
Academic Publication
A study of total beta specification through symmetric regression: the case of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange
Environ Syst Decis (2016) 36: 114
N/A
Jun 2016
Laird-Smith, J., Meyer, K. & Rajaratnam, K.
This journal article is a modified form of the project I completed in the final year of my undergraduate degree. The research examines the need for new methodology and specification for the CAPM beta parameter on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It is available through the Springer online portal.
Master’s Research
Market Betas on the JSE: Market Segmentation, Estimation & Empirical Evaluation
MCom Dissertation Topic at the University of Cape Town
N/A
2015 - 2017
Supervisor: Kanshukan Rajaratnam
This dissertation was submitted as my M.Com (Finance) degree requirement at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and as such it is available online from UCT Libraries under their open access policy.
The dissertation uses statistical methods and in particular Factor Models to:
- Discover variables that can be used as predictors of investment return.
- Simulate and compare a large number of trading strategies.
- Conduct testing to make models more robust and consistent.
Packages
{gs}
Author and maintainer
N/A
Nov 2018 - (present)
A package to make recurring calendar events a little easier by providing a simple grammar for expressing them using R code. The package includes functions to:
- Represent all kinds of date elements found in the
lubridatepackage: years, months, weeks, days, weekdays, quarters, semesters etc.
- Represent dates in terms of their relations to one
another, such as the “third Friday of July” or the “last Thursday in August”.
- Specify ranges of dates, such as “after the first Monday
in July” but “before the last weekday of August”.
- Compose the above elements together in arbitrarily complex patterns.
Conference Proceedings
Introducing {gs}
rstudio::conf
San Francisco, USA
Jan 2019
E-Poster
For this conference I was asked to create an interactive presentation showcasing the {gs} package, the details of which can be found on the previous page. The session for presenting the e-posters was held during the conference opening function.
RStudio’s annual Conference
Introducing {gs}
EARL
London, UK
Sep 2019
Contributed talk
For this conference I was asked to deliver a 30 minute presentation on the {gs} package, the details of which can be found on the previous page.
Enterprise Applications of the R Language
Teaching Experience
Economics Tutor
University of Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa
2010 - 2016
- Microeconomics
- Macroeconomics
- Microeconomics II (Intermediate)
- Macroeconomics II (Intermediate)
Head Tutor
Smuts Hall Residence
Cape Town, South Africa
2010
- Recruitment and coordination of all residence tutoring.
Speech & Debate Achievements
All in the British Parliamentary (BP) format.
Finalist
South African National Universities Debating Championships (SANUDC)
Cape Town, South Africa
2014
Also 2nd-top team and semi-finalist, Botswana 2015.
Top breaking team
Pan African Universities Debating Championships
Pretoria, South Africa
2011
Semi-final judge
World Universities Debating Championships
Cape Town, South Africa
2019